Manual Control Options
This point-and-shoot digital camera has a so-called Manual mode, but would be more accurately titled a program mode. It doesn’t allow manual adjustment of shutter speeds and apertures, but does allow some changes to be made in the shooting menu. Those options will be discussed in the next few sections.
Focus
Auto Focus – The Fujifilm FinePix Z5fd’s title bears the mark of the face detection system, which can be turned on with the tiny button atop the camera. This system quickly recognizes faces and superimposes green and white boxes around them on the LCD’s live view. Once it finds the faces, the camera adjusts the exposure accordingly. The Z5 can recognize up to 10 faces at a time as long as they are facing the camera; faces are even tracked if the person moves, and can go far to the edge of the frame. When the Z5’s face detection is turned off, two other AF modes are found in the shooting menu: Center and Multi. These superimpose yellow brackets on what is being focused upon, and there is hardly any shutter lag. The auto focus system in general works very well on the Z5fd, especially when compared to the Z1, which had substantial shutter lag and an ineffective auto focus system. The Z5fd works surprisingly well, too, considering that it doesn’t have an auto focus assist lamp. The Fujifilm FinePix Z5fd can focus as close as 3.1 inches in the macro mode, which is accessed from the left side of the multi-selector. Normally, the focus is from 2 ft to infinity.
Manual Focus – This is not an option on the FinePix Z5fd.
ISO
The Z5fd has a generous ISO selection in the “F” menu complete with a live view. 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 settings are available along with the Auto setting. Fujifilm incorporates the higher end of the range in several automatic exposure modes too including Natural Light, Natural Light & With Flash, and Anti-Blur. The Fuji Z1 produced lots of noise when we tested it almost two years ago, but the new Z5fd comes with a new image processor and many of the same guts that are included in the impressive FinePix F-series models.
White Balance
The shooting menu while in the Manual mode includes several white balance modes: Auto, Fine, Shade, Fluorescent Daylight, Fluorescent Warm White, Fluorescent Cool White, and Incandescent. The live view is quite large, making it easier to choose a proper mode.
Exposure
All of the exposure modes on the Z5fd are automatic in some way, although a few allow a little more control over parameters than others. While the shutter speed and aperture cannot be individually adjusted, there is exposure compensation in the shooting menu. The +/- 2 scale can be tweaked in 1/3 increments.
Metering
The metering cannot be manually adjusted, but the Fujifilm FinePix Z5fd uses a 256-zone exposure metering system.
Shutter Speed
The Fujifilm FinePix Z5fd automatically adjusts the shutter speeds from a 4-1/1000th of a second range. This is fairly typical of a compact digital camera, although it would be nicer if the range extended just a step or two further in each direction.
Aperture
The Fujinon 3x optical zoom lens stays within the camera at all times. Its dime-sized glass window on the front tells how tiny it is, not to mention the body is only 0.7 inches thick. The maximum aperture on this tiny lens isn't too impressive; at the lens’ widest setting, the aperture maxes out at f/3.5. There are only three other stops available: f/4.2 (the max when the lens is zoomed in), f/5.0, and f/8.0. The lens automatically chooses an aperture from this disappointing range.
